[JURIST] Wire services are reporting that former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers [JURIST news archive], convicted of fraud [JURIST report] in March for his part in an $11 billion accounting scandal, will forfeit as much as $45 million worth of personal assets in a settlement of related civil charges. The deal, announced by the New York Attorney General's office Thursday, will require him to pay $5 million directly and transfer almost all his other assets – worth as much as $40 million -into a liquidation trust to be sold off. This arrangement will, however, allow Ebbers to avoid paying restitution which could have been much more costly. A judge must still approve the settlement, and Ebbers still faces life in prison [AP report] at his sentencing, now scheduled for July 13 after a month's postponement [AP report].

THIS DAY @ LAW

International Day for the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination

March 21 is the International
Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination [UNESCO
factsheet].On March 21, 1804, the
Code Civil des Francais, the reformed French
civil law often referred to in French as the Code Napoleon, and in
English as the Napoleonic Code, went into effect in France, Belgium,
Luxembourg, and French colonies.

March from Selma begins

On March 21, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. began
his third march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest racial
discrimination in the Jim Crow South. By March 25, over 25,000
people lead by Dr. King reached Montgomery, Alabama. Specifically,
the march called attention to suppression of African-American voting
rights and a police assault on a civil rights demonstration three
weeks prior.Five months
later, in August 1965, Congress passed the Voting
Rights Act. Read a history
of the march from Selma to Montgomery and a history
of the Voting Rights Act.